BIG WINS INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION TO DESIGN THE NEW HUNGARIAN NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

BIG has been selected to design the home of the new Hungarian Natural History Museum in Hungary’s second-largest city, Debrecen. The 23,000 m² museum will be situated on the site of a former stadium in the southern part of the city, bordering the historic Great Forest, Nagyerdő. The new Hungarian Natural History Museum is designed in collaboration with Vikár és Lukács Építész Stúdió, proposing a series of curving ribbons to create a new public and scientific destination. The museum forms part of the government’s plan to transform Debrecen into a key regional hub for education and culture by 2030, replacing the current museum located in Budapest. Commissioned by the Museum and the Ministry of Culture and Innovation, the structure will house permanent and temporary exhibition halls, educational and research facilities, public amenities, and back-of-house spaces. “Natural history is a subject dear to me – so dear that I named my oldest son Darwin. To that end, it is a great honor to have been entrusted with the authorship of The Hungarian Natural History Museum in the great forest of Debrecen. Our design is conceived as an intersection of paths and lineages. Intersecting ribbons of landscape overlap to produce a series of niches and habitats, halls and galleries, blending the inside and the outside, the intimate and the mastodontic in seamless continuity. The result is a manmade hill in a forest clearing; geometrically clear yet softly organic – an appropriate home for the wonders of the natural world.” – Bjarke Ingels, Founder and Creative Director, BIG